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ADULESCENTl/E FOLIA, 



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REMINISCENCES 



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OF A 



SCHOOLBOY'S Development. 

. /■ .^"^ 

Maxima debetur puero reverentia . . . 
. . . ne tu pueri contemseris annos. \ 

Ju7>. Sat. xiv. -'4^, 










T& 1737 

. a ^53 At 



Former Prlss of the Chukch Eclectic, 
Utica, N. Y. 



[COPYRIGHT.] 



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TO MY GRANDSONS, 

ARTHUR OSBORNE, (iN PARADISK,) 

SON OF HON. L. S. HUNT AND 

GRACE KATHARINE GIBSON, 

AND 

WILLIAM BURR GIBSON. (IN BOYHOOD,) 

SON OF DR. W. M. AND MARY L. BURR GIBSON, 

THESE EARLY REMINISCENCES OF HAPPY CHILDHOOD 

AND YOUTH, ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 

BY THEIR LOVING GRANDFATHER. 

ANNO SALUTIS MDCCCXCV. 



Why is it that three-score and ten so irre- 
sistibly turns back to the days of childhood ? 
Memory then seems to become suddenly fresh 
and new again, while later years fade and grow 
dim of recollection. Is it because, as Words- 
worth says, "The child is father of the man"? 
That poet seems indeed, always to have been 
stirred, if not with "thoughts too deep for 
tears" yet with thoughts too deep for intelligi- 
ble expression. He would not probably have 
been willing to commit himself to the doctrine 
of metempsychosis, though he wrote 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgfetting ; 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elseivhei-e its setting" &c. 

Is it because we do not quite see what he 
would be at, that this passage has been classed 
in the high water mark of English poetry?* 
But at any rate we can feel somehow that 

* We should rather pay this tribute to his Lnodamin , 
though we always agreed with Montgomery's Lectures in 
his beautiful selections from the Excurs on.. 



6 



" Heaven lies about us in our infancy," 
and that 

" Though inland far we be 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither." 

And yet there is something fascinating in that 
notion. It is one of the trials of old age to be 
now and then meeting a face that might be as 
of an old friend, " loved long since and lost 
awhile,"' as Newman puts it. Could there be a 
second probation? .... But the psy- 
chologists and biologists have not yet settled 
the old question between Creatianism and Tra- 
ducianism. 



REMINISCENCES. 

I was the only son of my mother and she a 
widow from my earHest years. She had re- 
moved in 1828 from the eastern part of the 
State, to a Httle country hamlet in the " Lake 
Country," about half way between two of the 
longest and loveliest lakes in western New 
York. Here lived a prosperous sister whose 
husband was a country merchant, dealing chiefly 
in " barter " with the farmers of a newly settled 
country thereabout. It was known as part of 
the " Military Tract " surveyed by Simeon De 
Witt, and assigned to soldiers of the Revolution 
and their heirs, which accounts for the remark- 
able military spirit of those early days, long 
before our civil war.* We had "venerable 
men,'' survivors of the Revolution, to grace our 
Fourth of July celebrations, and we had brass 
six-pounders, captured at Yorktown, to thunder 
our defiance of all foreign foes, and we had 
drum majors who fired our boyish enthusiasm as 



* My mother had several stories to tell of her own 
father. Major DeLano, under Gen. Scott, in the war of 1812. 



completely as did our fathers and grandfathers 
in the two wars with Great Britain, then not so 
long past. As a child we used to see as many as 
six hundred cavalry charge at full gallop across a 
forty acre field discharging their great horse pis- 
tols like 2i.feiidejoie^ wheeling and galloping in 
separate squadrons to the place of return, looking 
most formidable in their bearskin caps, with a 
white red tipped feather, grey short coats tightly 
buttoned, holsters and steel scabbarded swords 
ratthng at their sides. The very farm horses 
not less than their owners, seemed to snuff up 
war, or the memories of glorious war on " Gen- 
eral Training Day." Then there were the 
" Light Infantry" in still greater numbers, white 
trousers, blue coats, white belts and buttons, 
straight hats with silver colored shields, eagle? 
and white feather, carrying the regulation mus- 
ket (flint lock) and bayonet attached. These 
were the rely-on-able troops. Then there were 
the Riflejnen in Robinhood green and semi- 
Indian fringes of costume, without bayonets 
and with the green feather red-tipped. The 
major generals, brigadiers and colonels of those 
days were no dilettantes, grave men, earnest 



men, not so proud of their office, as of their 
men and of their country ; many of them judges 
and legislators in time. They are all asleep, 
now, beyond the reach of war's alarms, happy 
in escaping the knowledge of what civil strife 
and hatred and bloodshed is ! 

But little boys had their fun, too, and the 
vivid imagination of childhood was ample to 
supply the place of the real weapons and ap- 
pliances now placed in the raw hands of over 
stimulated youth. Did we not really " drive 
stage " as we trotted tandem barefooted along 
the dusty road home from school ? Could a rea^ 
gun or drum have added anything to the wooden 
sticks and tin kettles with which we marched 
to our mimic battlefield ? There was YiO express 
lack of amusement or occupation or thmgs to 
think of in all our little horizon, whether it 
were the passing soldier spearing with his bay- 
onet and carrying off the gingerbread cards of 
an unlucky peddler by the road side, or another 
soldier pummelled over the head for awkward- 
ness by the Inspector, or another reprimanded 
for intoxication, put in charge of a squad to be 
ducked in a stream for his dirt, or whether it 



10 

was the premature discharge of a cannon that 
blew off the gunner's arm and drove the ram- 
rod through the side of a tavern between two 
gentlemen sitting on the "stoop,'" or whether 
it was a poor farmer's hand that got run away 
with by frightened horses and thrown against 
the village pump and killed, or whether it was 
Dr. W/s stalwart daughters on horseback riding 
their animals down the hill at full speed and turn- 
ing them square at the corner store without at 
all losing their seat — things like these constantly 
recurring made the world of little boys and girls 
large enough. The vast spaces of woods all 
around us were the favorite home of the rum- 
bling thunders, and the childish imagination peo- 
pled them with shadows, and " maybe "" ghosts, 
and even the dreaded "painter," of which we 
sometimes heard and thought we heard. And yet 
those woods in Autumn time of crimson and gold- 
en leaves, we ventured to explore far and near 
for all kinds of nuts, when we knew that the men 
were there too hunting the grey and the black 
and the red squirrels. One little boy quietly 
" borrowed '" a flint lock one day to " knock 
over "' (getting knocked over himself withal) 



11 

what he called a "chipmunk'' in the top of a 
tall tree, when behold there fell almost at his 
feet a fine, plump grey squirrel nearly as large 
as a cat ! How did Mrs. Hemans know that 
the American woods would reverberate the 
echoes of a musket far and wide on a still Au- 
tumn day with a sound like the roar of a storm 
in the distance ? There is nothing like it ex- 
cept when the woodman's axe brings down one 
of the grand giants in the same woods, — then 
the protest is long and loud, and the ear can 
scarcely tell when it dies away. Those vast 
forests, so full of restful air and mysterious 
sounds, are all cleared away, and the log cabins 
of the early settlers are replaced with two- 
storied white houses, with piazzas, and red barns 
for hay and grain, and carriage house for the 
family turn-outs. But besides the hunting, there 
was " fishin' " too. "'Boys will be boys," and 
how is it to be wondered at if a pair of them 
wandering ofi" too far at school recess followed 
a babbling brook through the fields and through 
the woods, stopping to "go in swimming " when- 
ever they came to deep enough water, until 
they found themselves hatless and barefooted 



on the pebbly beach of the broad blue lake 
that reflected all the clouds in the sky ; and the 
first sensation of a boat ride was floating be- 
tween heaven and earth. These lakes, too, 
stretching along for many miles with green and 
gold colored banks, in some places like a thread 
of silver between two mountains, had their mys- 
terious sounds as well as the woods, and it 
needed not the traditional conch shell for the 
imagination of a child to hear them. Though 
smooth as a mirror the gentle plash on the jet 
black shale of the beach was like the pulsation 
of a living, breathing thing of vastness, while 
every now and then came a distant boom, as 
of a sudden swell and explosion, or perhaps 
of a swashing blow from some huge flat body 
falling on the surface of the water. The child-- 
ish fancy accepts any explanation of the sights 
and sounds of nature which though not beyond 
his senses, are beyond his little ken. The In- 
dians had a tradition of a floating wanderer 
forever carried by the winds up and down one 
of these lakes, which college boys afterwards 
wove into the story of the "Lady of the Lake," 
with something delightful of awe and mystery. 



13 

But after all, there was something expansive to 
the mind of children in these ocasional glimpses 
of the long blue lakes, and the thoughts and asso- 
ciations they brought into life. Though m no 
place more than four or five miles wide, one of 
them has never frozen over even in the severest 
winters. We did not know then that we were 
living on " the slate and shale formation," but 
we did know that in our rambles we would 
come to deep and narrow ravines toward the 
lake with precipitous sides impossible to chmb, 
and waterfalls from eighty to one hundred feet 
high. One such between these lakes, over 200 
feet, then in wilderness, now has a fashionable 
summer resort, as also has a "Long Point" 
stretching out into the lake, making a lovely 
bay on the north side, only one of the beautiful 
features of that lake country, over which La- 
fayette was enthusiastic, and of which I heard 
the Hon. Hugh S. Legare declare, "that a fairer 
geographical section could not be cut out on 
the face of the globe." No wonder the sturdy 
Scotchman, WiUiamson, one of the first settlers 
of these parts, declared that God had already 
made the village at the foot of the Lake, he 



14 

was going to stay and make a shire town for 
Steuben County. 

At that time was at the height of his fame, 
J. Fenimore Cooper, whose son was a class- 
mate of the writer, at Geneva, and who as an 
American chronicler of Indian life had a cos- 
mopolitan reputation, his Leather Stocking 
tales being rendered into most of the languages 
of Europe. Mr. Cooper, took the side of an- 
other class-mate, Philip Spencer, who was 
hanged at sea on a charge of mutiny by Captain 
Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, in the controversy 
that was caused by that transaction, holding 
that the execution was unnecessary, because 
the ship was within distance of land sufficient 
to secure a proper trial. Mr. Cooper's home 
was at the foot of Otsego lake, another beautiful 
sheet familiar to the writer's earliest childhood, 
full of the associations and creations of his 
genius. One of the most original and powerful 
of the poetic compositions of Fitz Greene Hal- 
leck, addressed to a picture of Red Jacket, 
such as we used to see on the Safety Fund 
notes of the Seneca Co. Bank at Waterloo, 
was commemorative of Cooper, " whose name 



15 

is with his country's woven." It sho.vs a fire 
and spontaneity which, but for his early misfor- 
tune?, would have placed him, as well as Foe, 
high on the roll of American poets. 

The contemporaries of Red Jacket, too, were 
even not unknown to us young American patri- 
ots,who were highly dehghted to see occasionally 
the men of his tribe when they came on pil- 
grimages to his grave in the neighborhood,* as 
they showed their unerring dexterity with the 
bow and arrow, shooting pennies from a split 
stick, as long as our hmited supply would hold 
out. The speeches of Cornplanter, Logan, 
Red Jacket, and many others were well known 
to us boys, who had to "speak pieces" in school, 
and we did not always stop with " My name is 
Norval," or "My name is Rolling Thunder." 
During our college days we were shown by a 
grandson of Red Jacket, then a medical student, 

* The Historical Society of Waterloo have recently erect- 
ed a most appropriate monument to Red Jacket at his 
grave near the place where he was born, atCanoga, called 
the " Reservation" in our time. This was identified by 
the writer on the map of the survey which he made, partly 
with the aid of the late Bishop Welles, for the Hon. John 
Delafield, President of the State Agricultural Society in 
1850.) Several other points of historical interest were 
noted, such as Gen. Sullivan's march in 1777 down the east 
shore of the lake, traces of the roads for his artillery being; 
still visible in the ravines. 



16 

a handsome "Pipe of Peace" made of dark 
curled maple wood, in the form of a hatchet, 
beautifully inlaid with silver, as to the inscrip- 
tion and mouth piece, the head being hollowed 
for the bowl, presented to the great chief by 
George Washington, President of the United 
States. Many interesting stories could be told 
of this student who furnished his class-mates 
much amusement. 

I have alluded to the schools in those days. 
We walked a mile and drove the cows home from 
pasture at night, in the winter catching a ride 
when possible, as happily, it often was. That 
was in a log school-house presided over by a 
dear motherly matron of very gentle ways, who 
when she administered discipline which had to 
be done with semi-frequency, when Tom, Dick 
and Harry (those were their names) wandered 
off at recess to "go a swimmin'." But the 
lessons^ whether it was owing to the log school- 
house, or the merciful "dusting" of our jackets 
by the placid school marm, or the tenacity of 
childish memory, were hardly to be surpassed 
by the later developments of " modern educa- 
tion." Morse's Geography, with Albany's in- 



habitants presenting "their gable ends to the 
street,'' Murray's Old English Reader, with its 
classical selections of literature that one does 
not easily forget, though he may parody, Daboll's 
Arithmetic, and above all, Cobb's SpeUing 
book, which will still carry a man resj^ectably 
through hfe, were all so thoroughly learned by 
practice and written repetition, that they be- 
came part of a boy's personaUty. If Bishop 
Stubbs said he had heard Mediaevahsm and 
Sacerdotahsm objected to by Church people 
who could not spell the words correctly, we may 
be sure they never had the advantages of Elsie 
Fleming's school and Cobb's SpeUing book. 

The first Dame school I attended was organ- 
ized by my uncle, a great enthusiast in music, 
who had a family of three sons and three daugh- 
ters, the latter being of an age to be my play- 
fellows. He was the sole merchant of the place, 
and was anxious to give the girls a good educa- 
tion, and I came in for a good share in the train- 
ing. His dining room was noted for a picture 
of a deer hunt, in all its stages from the start to 
the finish at the death, represented on the wall 
paper on the four sides of the room, which the 



18 

boy was much interested in, and which was quite 
a sensation in that rustic neighborhood. The 
school had some features pecuhar to its founder. 
Besides committing things to memory, we were 
taught elements of drawing and mensuration, 
being provided with pencils, compasses, Gunter's 
scale, &c. ; but especially we had to recite from 
a little book on the elements of music, learning 
all about the notation, scales, keys, signatures, 
&c., &c., sufficient to be able to 7-ead any mu- 
sical composition, so as to sing it mentally, but 
without any vocal practice. It really is a use- 
ful accomplishment, and helps one to judge of 
a publication by sight only, whether an instru- 
ment is at hand or not. But the /abo7', tor child- 
ren, was pretty severe, the routine tedious, to 
get the quaint rules of those days — " if B be 
flat the ;;// is in E. ; if B and E be flat the ;;// 
is in A; if B, E and A be flat the ;;// is in D," 
&c., &c. Of course, what we called the w/ 
then, is what is now the si in the regular syl- 
labic scale of the whole gamut. It is much 
more simple to say now, whatever note is chosen 
for the do or key, the 3d and 4th from that as well 
as the 7 th and 8th must have ox\\y3i half interval 



19 

between them, which explains the black keys 
on the piano. But we also learned to " parse,' 
and here our memory served also with a com- 
plete equipment of Murray's English Gram- 
mar until we became quite expert, even with 
Milton's epic. 

As for religion, we were all taken to the Pres- 
byterian "meeting house/' as it was universally 
called then, a tall building with two storeys of 
windows, on a hill about half a mile distant, 
whither the farmers' wives had to bring their 
tm and wooden boxes as feet warmers in winter. 
The great height of the building necessitated 
a lofty pulpit which was reached by a long 
winding stair case, and compelled an upward 
attention at an angle of about 45 degrees, if one 
was far enough off. The dignified ascent of 
that stair case, and the subsequent disposal of 
hat and coat, with the time it occupied, consti- 
tuted a ritual that we must say was very im 
pressive to the boyish imagination. But the 
preacher ! a stern Calvinist, who believed against 
some of his contemporaries, that the stronger 
meat of the larger Catechism was highly useful 
and "necessary for the times," was withal one 



20 

of the most eloquent, and in voice and physical 
aspect, one of the most finished orators I have 
ever heard, and I have since heard Beecher, 
Gough, and Chapin, to say nothing of Clay and 
Webster, and Mr. Gurney, the Quaker. People 
of good education came from a village five miles 
off to hear him, but nothing illustrates the old 
fable of the Frogs and the Stork better than the 
way in wiiich the sleepy old farmers whom he 
had to keep awake, finally harried him, so that at 
last with a growing family on his hands, he was 
obliged to turn farmer himself, in sheer disgust. 
As an immigrant to New York or any other 
city, like Dr. Parkhurst, he might have made his 
fortune. This preacher induced myself and 
the boys to join a temperance society, which 
he started, the pledge of which was to abstain 
from all arde?it spirits or distilled liquors. This 
good man would have been horrified at the 
modern proscription of wine^ the element pre- 
scribed by our Lord Himself, and frequently 
denounced such fanaticism from the pulpit. 
(But the boy has kept his pledge.) His theo- 
logical attitude may be well seen from a remark 
on noticing Dr. Adam Clarke's Commentary on 



21 

my mother's table. "That book,'' said he, "is 
as rotten as old pork." 

Practically, however, religious controversy did 
not penetrate our child life. One experience, 
however, might have led me to comparisons, 
but did not. One summer, for a visit of a 
month to friends more than a hundred miles 
away, my mother left me with a country school 
master and his wife who had no children of their 
own. The horrors of that month, with its terri- 
ble fwsfalgia, when every night found me at 
the gate, crying silent tears, gazing down the 
long street for her long, long expected return, 
will never pass out of memory. These people 
were not unkind. They simply never once 
smiled! To the child they were just a sealed 
book. Their whole demeanor was such that 
in their presence he was ever conscious where 
his feet were, where his eyes were, where his 
hands were, and altogether uncertain what was 
the object of his existence. Such a discipline 
is not without harmful results. But I remem- 
ber one thing for which I am grateful ; I learned 
to recite the whole Gospel of St. Matthew from 
memory. Well, I might write another book 



22 

like Alton Locke, against such religion, but I 
will not ! 

It would be wrong to say that I had no sense 
of rehgious truth. From my earliest years I 
had a deep and dominant sense of it, probably 
awakened by the current exercises of public 
worship, and if in answer to childish inquiries 
my mother told me I must pray for a new heart, 
I am sure the burden of David's litany and the 
collect for Ash-Wednesday were frequently on 
my lips, though I never saw the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer until long after. I had a quick 
and vivid imagination, and many a time in read- 
ing some story from a "Sabbath" school book 
by my mother's work table, I was so overcome 
by the sense of reality in what I read, that I 
would suddenly drop to the floor in a "dead 
faint,'' which was also sometimes the case at 
the sight of blood. 

Among the old farmers of that day rehgion 
and military duty never made any hindrance 
to their secular affairs. They could "hurrah for 
Jackson," or Adams, or Van Buren, or Tippe- 
canoe, and "go to meeting" all the same. 
Some old deacons and elders, for whom we 



23 

boys used to "carry sheaves" in harvest time for 
two shillings a day, would come, rain or shine, 
five miles to a Friday night prayer meeting, 
every week, while they never missed a "Sab- 
bath's preaching/' 

But the time came when the dear mother 
must send her boy away to Fxhool to prepare 
for college, a step that cost her much patient 
self-denial and loneliness, while it caused a sud- 
den resistance in him. "Who will split the 
wood with my little axe you gave me ?" was 
the crushing question he put. But this grand 
woman tried to impress the young mind with the 
old truth — her own experience — that "riches 
take wings and fly away, but a good education 
no one can rob you of." The boy beHeved her 
word, because she was mother, and had never 
deceived him. An arrangement was made with 
an Academy village five miles distant by which 
a citizen was to make an exchange of board 
for a daughter who wished to join my sister in 
a school for pupils in music in our own neigh- 
borhood. It would too much prolong this story 
to give the details of those three years of study, 
beginning August 1835, with Adams' Latin 



24 



Grammar, the copy I still preserve in substan- 
tial leather binding, as when I first reverently 
bought it. It was the summer of the great 
comet of 1680, trailed almost across the north- 
ern sky and prolonged almost up to Christmas. 
The studies of this period were Natural Philos- 
ophy, Chemistry and Astronomy, Latin up to 
Cicero and Sallust, Greek from Reader up to 
Anabasis, with other usual exercises. The 
principal was a scholarly, quiet, amiable old gen- 
tleman, formerly a Congregational minister, re- 
tired from loss of voice, by name Wm. Eastman. 

Students are apt to acquire the notion that 
any question, as Ezra Cornell might put it, ought 
to be answered ; but I remember that when in 
a Bible class, I was asked the foolishly ambi- 
tious question, what was to hinder another 
"war in Heaven'' or rebeUion of angels, my 
preceptor gave me Deut. xxix. 29, to take back 
as my answer, w^iich I fancy would do for all 
the broad Churchmen of the present day. 

This excellent man, who was a bachelor, 
seemed to take a great fancy to the new boy, and 
lavished spe-cial pains on him. It went so far 
that finally, when for lack of means, my mother 



'-io 



was feeling compelled to take me from school, 
this good man arranged for me to take a room 
in the Academy building, with himself,where we 
could pursue studies together, especially Astron- 
omy, with a telescope he had, I undertaking to 
walk home once a week to bring my necessary 
provender for the week. This was kept up 
until 1 left to enter college, and to it I owe a 
tolerable familiarity with the stars, constella- 
tions, planets, nebulae and other facts of Astron- 
omy that has ever since abided with me. 
During this period occurred the coronation of 
Queen Victoria (in 1837) and a young lady, a 
fellow pupil much older, showed me the original 
MSS. of the poet Halleck's Faimy^ which con- 
tains the beautiful passage about "Weehaw- 
ken." An exhibition in June or July 1838 
closed my career in the Academy, which was a 
happy period, that calls up many, many pleasant 
recollections. 

In the fall of 1836 my mother contracted 
her second marriage, with a respectable farmer 
who had emigrated from Sharon, Conn., whose 
family had been neighbors and acquaintances 
•of the family of the late Dr. John Cotton Smith, 



26 

and who had purchased the homestead of my 
uncle's venerable father, who had removed 
thither from Aurora on the lake. Kere for 
some years I spent my vacations, and soon had 
the pleasure of welcoming two or three half- 
brothers and sisters, one of the former of whom, 
(Dr. Chas. I. Pardee) is now Dean of the Med- 
ical Department of the University of the city 
of New York. 

From the top of this Academy building the 
view extended into seven counties, including 
the two lakes on either hand, and the famous 
" Cayuga Bridge " at the foot of the eastern 
one, where I remember crossing it in a stage 
on the ice April i, 1832, along side of the bridge 
which was one mile in length, now gone to de- 
cay, supplanted by the N. Y. C. RR. There 
were rural excursions in plenty — the wooded 
ravines and " Hogs-back " where the Willard 
State Hospital now stands with its 1,000 acres 
of farm land, and steamboat dock, were our 
play grounds, so to speak, while our trips were 
frequent to Appletown, Lodi Falls, Sheldrake, 
Tioughnioga, &c. I remember a 7valk I once 
took in one afternoon between dinner and tea,. 



27 

from Trumansburg to Ovid, via Farmersville, 
sixteen miles. The Court House also furnished 
much public entertainment with lawyers like 
Judges Maynard and Seelye and Halsey, W. H. 
Seward, Josiah Miller and Alvah Worden. Sew- 
ard was rising rapidly in public estimation and 
ended in national eminence. I heard him try 
a case of rape, in which he cited the statutes 
of Moses about an assault " in the field " and 
"'in the city." At a party at his house in Au- 
burn, standing with Worden before a picture of 
S. John (with the eagle,) the latter repeated 
the first verse of his Gospel in Greek,whereupon 
Seward repeated the same verse in Latin, which 
was voted by the company as the greater feat 
of the two. 

In September following my mother having 
obtained a small sum to start me, in my same 
little "blue surtout" with turn down collar, 
having borrowed from my uncle a "sulky," I 
drove to Geneva from Waterloo, to present 
myself for examination for the Freshman class. 
I was a fortnight late and the sulky broke 
down with me on my return to Waterloo ; but 
after a pretty full examination I was admitted. 



28 

The late Dr. Ayrault, Dr. W. A. Matson, Rev. 
G. L. Piatt and others, were in classes above 
me, but among my freshman classmates were 
the late Dr. P^ederic Gardiner, of Middletown, 
and the late Dr. John N. Norton, of Louisville. 
The President, to whom I first applied, was 
the Rev. Benjamin Hale, D.D., a courtly and 
gracious gentleman, who had formerly been a 
professor at Dartmouth, which Daniel Webster 
"loved," and which has furnished other Presi- 
dents of the same stately and unmistakable 
character, like the late Dr. Brown of Hamilton. 
What the young men of the college owed to Dr. 
Hale, (whose picture hangs in my study) in 
the way of refined manners, sound scholarship, 
modest conservatism, discriminating judgment, 
and stimulating ambition for a useful life, can 
never be described or measured by those of us 
who experienced and for long after felt rather 
than understood its benefits. He was a man 
who planted principles in the mind which in- 
evitably wrought out their results in character. 
Even men who had been rusticated (to the care 
of some country clergyman) came back con- 
vinced of the justice of his discipHne, and the 



29 

high dignity and honor of all his dealings. To 
his judgment I owe the selection of many books 
outside of the college course, which have made 
profound impression on subsequent views of 
life, among which I will only mention "Sewell's 
Introduction to the Dialogues of Plato," "Col- 
eridge's Greek Poets," and Sewell's "Evi- 
dences of Christianity,''' with Cicero's De Rerum 
Natura. Dr, Hale was permeated with the 
clearness and irrefragable logic of Butler's 
Analogy, and in his lectures on Architecture, 
Geology, and Political Economy, he gradually 
widened our field and broadened our minds 
until we came to the more profound disquisi- 
tions of philosophy and metaphysics in his 
famous "Senate" of the Seniors in the last 
year. 

The whole curriculum was quite severe, the 
professors having considerable emulation for the 
credit of their several departments. Our Math- 
ematical Professor, from West Point, not only 
made us sweat over Calculus, in which we had 
at any rate 07ie man to carry us along (Gardiner), 
but he also got us into Descriptive Geometry and 
Shades and Shadows, on which we did a world 



80 

of drawing (a text-book then not generally used 
in colleges) ; and in Junior year he made us 
recite in French most oi Lame's Coiirs du Phy- 
sique^ de L'Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. One 
thing we recall from that book, the explanation 
of the enormous hail stones that sometimes fall 
m French rural districts, caused by upper and 
lower strata of clouds in opposite states of elec- 
tricity. While the Professor was very genial 
and free in teaching, the boys sometimes had 
a good laugh when it fell his turn to read the 
lessons in chapel, as when other professors were 
al)sent, which he did sometimes by taking un- 
usual parts of the Bible, thus for instance, in 
Job, " the horse crieth among the trumpets. 
Hay, hay !" 

Our classical course was even more thorough 
than this, our range carrying us through the 
comedies and tragedies of the Greek Drama, 
and Latin writers from Terence to Tacitus. 
Even our French was almost classical in Gil 
Bias, with the nephew of Washington Irving 
as our Professor. 

Our societies were chiefly literary, and many 
a young lawyer took his first lessons in oratory 



31 

and parliamentary practice in the lively debates 
and party divisions of the Euglossian and Alpha 
Phi Delta societies. There were also weekly 
newspapers in each, for which I confess I did con- 
siderable versification, not worth while to de- 
scribe here. But the story of college events, its 
studies and its athletics, its varying succession 
of new students, new books, not excluding 
popular literature, for some of us had the first 
reading of such things as Oliver Twist, and the 
Old Curiosity Shop, besides Ivanhoe and The 
Talisman of the immortal Sir Walter, and many 
others. I tried to read the Mysteries of Paris, 
but could not get through half of it. I read 
one of the "■ Sohtary Horseman'' series by James, 
anrl a novel by one Sydenham, Alice Paulet, 
which was said by some one (perhaps Bulwer 
Lytton) to contain the most real picture of a 
genilemcm par excellence in the English lan- 
guage. In short I satisfied myself with read- 
ing two or three of the best works of fiction in 
the language, and stopped there. Of course, 
the Vicar of Wakefield, Clarissa Harlowe, 
White's Selborne, Alphonse Karr's Tour Round 
my Garden, Boswell illustrated, and books of 



32 

that kind are worth keeping in one's Hbrary, 
as well as Middleton's Life of Cicero, which 
was the making of John Quincy Adams. 

We had amusements enough. Gardiner and 
myself got the name of Damon and Pythias, 
— so much were we together, one time taking 
a meridian line by altitude of Polar Star, and 
the same night wandering with a guitar all 
night on the banks of the lake. There were 
two or three sad cases of drowning during my 
stay at college, that cast a solemn gloom over 
us, besides one that came near being fatal 
while some forty of us were in bathing. 

I was present, as a boy in college, at the 
Convention that elected that courtly and ac- 
comj)lished gentleman. Dr. De Lancey of St. 
Peter's, Philadelphia, as Bishop of the Diocese, 
though it was little I knew then of the Episco- 
pal Church. 

I had to leave college for one term in Sopho- 
more year, during which 1 taught school in my 
own neighborhood, " boarding round " among 
the farmers. This I allow gave me a new ex- 
perience and some valuable ideas of human 
nature. It was then that I found in the school 



33 



Library (Harper's) and devoured with much 
zest, Montgomery's "Lectures on English Lit- 
erature," which I have more or less utilized, 
and which many years after, 1 heard Bishop 
Coxe recommend strongly to the Hobart 
students. 

About a month before my graduation, which 
occurred Aug. 4, 1842, I was invited to take 
charge of a select school limited to 12 boys, 
which had been conducted by a -Mr. Sloan, who 
had been a tutor in college, and was lost on 
the steamer Erie on one of the western lakes, 
on a vacation trip. But they said I acquitted 
myself creditably in my Commencement oration, 
on the "Baconian Philosophy." Bishops On- 
derdonk, and De Lancey, the Hon. Mark H. 
Sibley and others were present. The thing 
which " braced me up " for the occasion, was 
a visit of the Utica Citizens' Corps with their 
brass band. 

After graduation my name was entered as a 
student of law in the office of the Hon. Bowen 
Whiting, vice-chancellor of the 7th Circuit. 
For some time previous I had assisted in edit- 
ing the Getieva Courier^ published by Mr. Ira 
3 



34 



Merrell, which I retained through the Clay- 
campaign o( 1844, in which I had many tilts 
with the late Judge Folger, the opposing editor. 
I came out of college $400 in debt, and this 
with my school helped me to clear it off in 
one year. 

While in college I was connected with a Bible 
class conducted by the Rev. Henry Dwight, 
then a banker in Geneva, having left his pulpit 
for loss of voice. His son used to call for me 
on Sundays to accompany him to the glass 
factory (a mile south of the village) to assist 
him in the opening services of a Sunday school, 
he being too shy of temperament to perform 
the duty. I observed that he always chose 
the most round about and unfrequented roads 
for the drive, not to be seen in his elegant turn- 
out "on the Sabbath." Yet he told me of a 
visit he made to one of the Protestant minis- 
ters of Paris, (Adolphe Monod,) who after 
preaching on Sunday, would go home and romp 
and play with his children on the floor. He 
thought we were altogether too straight laced 
in this country. 

My teacher in Mr. Dwight 's Bible class was 



35 



the Hon. Jacob Sutherland, formerly a Judge 
of the Supreme Court, but then Clerk of said 
Court, the emoluments being much greater 
than of the judicial position. It was under 
him, unintentionally, of course, that I became 
convinced of the lack of basis for Calvinism. 
We recited from the Epistle to the Hebrews 
which I had before me in Greek. 

During the three years my name was con- 
tinued with Judge Whiting as a law student, 
I did considerable work as a clerk, making 
abstracts of title in securities for a New York 
Loan & Trust Company, and was specially in- 
terested in finding two sources of title for the 
farmers situated in the Gore north of Geneva, 
one from the State, and the other from the 
Phelps & Gorham Co., (quit claim) which had 
run a new line due north (by transit instrument), 
from the eighty-second mile -stone in the north 
boundary of Pennsylvania, which line came out 
midway in the lake, nearly two miles east of 
the first line run by compass, still called the 
"Old Preemption line." 

I studied hard, Blackstone and Kent (of 
course), making an abstract of the former, with 



86 



no such result as Gibbon; "Chitty on Plead- 
ing," which Judge Maynard told me "has got 
it all in," meaning the Law : "Tidd's Practice," 
Saunders' Reports, Greenleaf on Evidence, 
Warren's Law Studies, &c., &c., taking part in 
a moot court we had. I kept up my editorial 
work, and taught Greek Testament to a young 
man, a Presbyterian Hcentiate, with whom I 
took a trip in the summer of 1843 to Niagara 
Falls, riding on horseback to Le Roy, on one 
day, where he had a "buggy," with which we 
proceeded the second day, (Sunday intervening,) 
when to my surprise my fellow horseman was 
the man to make his appearance m the pulpit ! 
He also had a large carriage at the Falls, with 
which we returned to Geneva, taking home 
several of the pupils in the ladies' seminary 
at Le Roy. It was a very nice outing indeed, 
for a hard worked law student! Until about 
that time, the railroad ran only to Attica. 

On my admission to the Bar it was found 
that my preceptor had forgotten to enter my 
name on file at the Supreme Court Clerk's 
office as a student. After the examination, 
conducted by Nicholas Hill, Vincent Matthews 



37 



and a Mr. Talcott of Buffalo, in which one- 
third of the class (26 out of 78) were unsuc- 
cessful, after the list of those admitted had 
been reported to the court, a lawyer (Hon. 
Alfred Ely) made a motion that my name be 
entered in the list of students certified as ?iunc 
pro finic, which motion was granted by Justice 
Bronson. 

For two or three years after, my practice 
consisted chiefly in conveyancing, for which I 
did some surveying. But in 1848 I resumed 
my position at the head of the Academy, Nvhich 
had been changed, chiefly by my efforts, to a 
Union High School. Here I had splendid 
classes, not only in Latin and Greek, but in 
Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, 
and in the French of Madam de Stael, read by 
a large class of young ladies. Bishop Welles, 
Rev. Dr. Elmendorf, Rev. C. S. Robinson, 
Rev. Hale Townsend, Prof. Wheeler, and 
many others were among my pupils. One fall 
I sent ten students to Hobart, and five to 
Hamilton. 

But I never got rid of my inclination for the 
Minis iry, which my mother had ever desired- 



38 



Even in the intervals of my school duties, I 
had read the whole of Townsend'' s C/irono/ogica/ 
Arrangement in two volumes between June 
and Christmas; and no poem could have im- 
pressed me more than Tennyson's /// Memo- 
riam^ which appeared about that time. 

So it was I finally became a candidate for 
orders, about 1850, and was ordained deacon 
in December, 1853. 

I came of age in September, 1843, and cast 
my first vote in 1 844. Soon after I was chosen 
Principal of Waterloo Academy, was admitted 
to the Bar, July, 1845, binder Chief Justice 
Bronson, and m April, 1846, I was married to 
the young lady with whom I first became 
acquainted at Ovid Academy, (though not 
engaged until the year cf my graduation.) 
Here, then, the reminiscences of boyhood and 
youth properly end, though many details still 
had in remembrance, are necessarily omitted. 



PART ir. 

The following are a few, preserved oat of a 
considerable number, a large portion of which 
has been lost, of the fugitive pieces in which 
the feelings and fancies of a happy and ardent 
boyhood and }Outh found their expression. 
After the lapse of many years, during which 
they were absolutely forgotten, the writer may 
be excused for turning to them with some fond- 
ness, recognizing m them the tokens of an early 
life singularly pure and truthful, viewed in the 
light of his subsequent knowledge of the world. 
Reared in the midst of toil and poverty, he was 
also afflicted with a serious deafness, i from his 
earliest recollection,) of which he was therefore 
hardly ever conscious as a misfortune, but 
which long shut out from him the sounds of 
evil, and which often rendered even the sight 
of evil unintelligible. Deprived in infancy of a 
father who might have sooner initiated him 
into the real struggle of life, he was trained by 
a devoted mother who developed the best and 
tenderest affections of his nature. Such a boy- 



40 



hood and youth is a memory that grows sweeter 
and more precious with the advance of age, 
which demands harder and sterner sense for 
hfe's trials and conflicts. The writer well re- 
members how, long before his admission to the 
Bar, he heard the late Secretary Seward declare 
to a jury that up to the time of his marriage 
he was innocent of all sins of impurity, and 
ignorant of those facts of nature which are thus 
so often prematurely learned. There are men 
who live a virtuous youth and are strangers to 
that necessary implication of evil which the 
world attaches to most of what men think 
and do. 

It might be thought the poetic faculty such 
as it is, in the following pieces was first aroused 
by the tender passion. Such was not however 
the case, though it was greatly intensified by 
it. "^I'he writer remembers that his first per- 
formance at an Academy " Exhibition " was a 
poem, entitled "The Indian's Lament," which 
was kindly spoken of by an eminent Judge who 
heard it, and was published in the village paper, 
though he is not aware that any copies of it 
are now in existence. 



(The Geneva Courier.) 
THE SOLITARY HARP. 1839- 

Lines on a Picture of a Harp leaning against a 
monument, surmounted by a helmet and shield, 
the arms of a knight, shaded by a tree, with a 
castle on an eminence in the distance. 



Hail to the Harp of spirit stirring song ! 

Hail ! whether swept by th' Unknown's giant hand, 

In the far North, or banks of Po along, 

'Neath sunny skies, or Tiber's yellow strand. 

Or e'en perchance where Gunga's golden sand 

Is kiss'd by clear, though superstitious wave. 

Or yet where linger in old Grecian land. 

Sweet as the dying swan's, those strains that save 

The soul of Melody from dark oblivion's grave. 

2 
But wherefore standest there so sadly mute, 
O lyre divine? — No hand awakes thy strings ; 
No sound steals forth to ravish man and brute, 
And animate the stones — save murmurings 
Of the low, sympathetic breeze whose wings 
Play sportive round thy wires ; methinks 'tis grief, 
For some brave soul, that e'en the bird that sings 
Would hush to solemn silence ; — some stern Chief, 
That from the toils of war here sought his last 
relief. 



43 



Perhaps he was a lone, advent'rous knight, 
That wandered far o'er many a rugged hill. 
In quest with whom, in fierce, unwitnessed fight, 
T' assert his matchless fair one, haply till 
Some peerless maid o'ercame his warlike skill. 
Within the fastness of yon stony tower, 
And caused him here, with proud, unyielding will, 
To doff his helm of steel — Ah ! mourn the hour ! 
For oft his errant way was cheered by thy soft 
power. 



But thou'lt not slumber o'er his generous deeds : 
Thou'lt blazon them, as wont, in realms afar ; 
How sav'd from outrage, and from widow's weeds, 
Some beauteous matron ; how, like morning star 
To sea-tost mariners, he stilled the jar 
Of robber strife o'er some beleaguered town : — 
O sing! for harsh and iron clang of war 
No more disturbs yon dale and hillock brown. 
Thy trembling harmonies accustom'd long to 
drown ! 



So hast thou loved of knights' and ladies' fame 

To celebrate the praise; beneath "the tree 

Of Freedom's withered trunk" thou, all too tame. 

Hast long attuned thy string fair Italy, 

The vine clad hills of France, the Oueen of Sea, 



43 



Baronial England, all have learned thy lore: — 
Oh then, not long reluctant to the free, 
And young Columbia haste; enslav'd no more. 
Here, heaven born Harp of Song, thy note persua- 
sive pour ! 

"Olim." 



The following are a few lines from a translation 
of the first book of Homer's Odyssey, which the 
writer undertook to do in blank verse, line for line. 
It presents unusual difficulties, though his old 
Schrevelius aided him with an occasional Saxon 
vocable. Five more books were rendered in prose. 
It was the work of one summer's vacation in Fresh- 
man year. The selection is from line 400 to end 
of Book I. Eurymachus inquires the object of 
Minerva's visit to Telemachus, of course not know- 
ing that the stranger was a goddess. 

" Telemachus, 'tis in the lap of gods 

Who o'er the Greeks in Ithaca shall reign. 

But you .may keep your goods, your household 

rule — 
He may not come who from thee loath shall wrest 
Thy substance, Ithaca dwelt in the while. 
But I, O Chief, would ask about thy Guest, 
That stranger, whence ? What land boasts he his 

own ? 
Where is his race and native country's place? 
Brings he some message of thine absent sire, 



44 



Or comes he seeking a discharge of debt ? 
How quick he vanished ! neither stayed to gain 
Acquaintance. Sure he seemed no common man. 

To whom discreet Telemachus replyed : 
" Eurymachus, my sire's return is lost ! 
Nor message do I trust, whence'er it comes, 
Nor divination which my mother seeks, 
Oft calling the consulter in her house. 
But this my father's guest from Taphus is — 
He boasts him son of brave Anchialus, 
Mentes, and of the oar-loving Taphians, King." 
Thus said Telemachus, the Immortal knowing. 

But to the dance and to the inspiring song 
They turned, and joyed until th' approach of even. 
But when black night down on their pleasures 

came 
Then tending homeward each desired repose. 
Telemachus, where his hall-room superb 
Was high prepared conspicuous in place. 
Retired to rest, revolving many thoughts. 

Sage Euryclea blazing torches bore 
For him — daughter of Ops, Pisenor's son 
Whom first Laertes purchased with his wealth 
While youthful yet, and twenty oxen gave. 
Her as his spouse he honored in the house, 
But shunned her bed, and so his consort's wrath, 
For him she bore the torches, loved him most 
Of all the maids, and nursed his infancy. 



45 



— The close built chamber windows he unclosed, 

Sat on his couch, put off his tunic soft. 

And placed it in the assiduous matron's hands. 

She folding up and smoothing it with care, 

And hanging it on peg beside his bed 

Straight left the room, and closed with silver ring 

The door, and fastened by its thong the bolt. 

There he all night, in fleecy coverings wrapt 

Thought on the journey well, Minerva had advised. 



* There are many other lines which show better the 
picturesque imagery of the exquisite old story-teller. Thus 
the aged and feeble Laertes : 

"Slow tottering home along the vine-clad hills," 
or the absent Ulysses — 

•' Whose white bones now are rotting in the rain, 
By land or welter in some ocean wave." 

So Jove notes how the suitors despoil Ulysses' substance : 

" Do alway slaughter his well-crowded flocks, 
And feast on his slow 'rolling-footed' kine." 

Hard to translate, but every one recognizes the peculiar 
swinging gait of a cow or ox. 



46 

HYMN TO HOPE. 

(horatian.) 1840- 

There is a far, far distant shore, 
"Where, once arrived, we wish no more 

The joys we left behind ; 
Where dark oblivion holds her sway, 
Where all the trifles of the day 

A certain burial find. 

But like the fabled Lethe's flood 

A sombre stream, 3^et not withstood. 

Rolls darkly on this side ; 
The stream of Life — its cares and pains, 
The stream of Time, its various scenes, 

Uncertain and untried. 

So have I had the common lot, 
So have I loved and then forgot 

Full many a haunted place : 
And those I've had I thought my friends 
Who wander now where interest ends 

Nor recognise my face. 

But though the stream of Life's events 
Oft drowns the pleasurable sense 

Of joys that fleet away, 
I know there is full oft a thrill 
Of tender recollection still 

Of some bright former day. 



47 



Ay, many a distant shore I've trod, 
E'en now I'm far from native sod. 

And scenes of childish mirth ; 
But oh, I'll shun that gloomy coast 
Where all remembrances are lost, 

Of one that gave Hope birth ! 



A GLIMPSE OF RECOGNITION. 

STEAMBOAT EXCURSION. 1839 

O whence came she — that gay young maid, 

With the eloquent, soft blue eyes ? 
Is it only a vision, swift to fade 

Doth thus before me rise? 
Light hearts are around her, deep is the flush 

That sweetly pervades her cheek, 
Perchance it is these those feelings hush. 

That would else free utterance seek. 

II 

Oh swift as the boat o'er the broad blue lake. 

So gaily bears us on. 
Thro' the clouds of the past fond memory '11 break, 

And recall me the days that are gone. 
See the foam at the prow, and the waters white 

Fly fast in whirls by the stern — 
No swifter they than the fancies bright 

That rise to my thoughts' return. 



48 



HI. 

Ay, gaily our boat doth the many waves plough, 

As she nears my youthful haunts. 
And gay yon crowd, not a pensive brow. 

But the sound of the song and the dance. 
O home of my youth ! I turn to thee 

With more than an exile's love, 
With more than an exile's grief I see 

I must far my abode remove. 

IV. 

No more can the far brown haze obscure 

Those seats we loved so well ; 
Fond memory clings with grasp too sure 

To yield to time's weird spell ; 
But why wish to leave their remembrance afar 

And not recur to them still ? 
Mid the clouds of life my Cynosure star 

Has twinkled from o'er yon hill ! 



O then would I hail that longed for spot 

Where my young Muse found her home, 
And fain would I see if it's yet forgot 

By the maid who has now learned to roam, 
But the waters wid& and the far green hills. 

And the long shore sweeping past ; 
All this the glad soul but with pleasure fills, 

And pleasure — O let it last ! 



49 



ALBUM IMPROMPTU. 

Sarah ! there's music in that name, 

That e'er of beauty told. 
In his calm breast it raised a flame — 

The Patriarch of old. 

On Shinar's plain he watcht the star, 

Trembling on high above, 
But sweeter to his bosom far, 

The name that breathed of love. 

What's in a name? the Poet sung, 
But oh, who hath not found, 

Some name, e'en on a stranger's tongue, 
Will thrill us with its sound ! 



Sweet flower ! thou bloomest not unseen, 
Tho' doubtless thou wouldst fain ; 

That timid blush might snare, I ween, 
The heart of many a swain. 

But raay'st thou be unconscious still, 

Of power t' inflict a wound, 
Tho' innocence, it seems, e'er will 

Cupid's best dart be found. 

For even as flowers all men will make 

Their beauty to confess. 
So chiefly 'tis for its own sake 

We love true loveliness ! 
4 



50 



Oh ! well I ken yon quiet shadowy vale ! 

Oh ! well I ken that limpid babbling stream ! 
Oh ! well I ken the bridge with humble rail 

Where she, my love, first heard my heavenly 
dream ! 
'Twas long ago, but even now I seem 

To bend with anxious eye o'er that clear flood, 
Which, like my heart, in Luna's silver beam 
Trembled and flashed; — or, as 'twere faltering 

stood. 
To catch one radiant smile,— then seek the lone, 
dark wood. 



LINES WRITTEN FOR A MISS D. 

1S41. 

Then couldst, thou beautiful, arrest 
Thine ear at sound of this my tuneless lyre ! 
Thou in whose spirit glows the purest fire. 
Can warm the youthful breast ; 

Thou who art in thy thoughts confessed 
Harmonious, full of gentle melody, 
Could'st listen thou to humbler minstrelsy 

Even though of thy behest ! 

This world was made a world of change ; 
Seasons and years and generations pass 
Insensibly, and all the myriad mass 
Of life diverse and strange. 



51 



But tell me, can we never save 
From out the fleeting:, withering liipse of time 
Some happy reminiscence of our prime, 
To circumstance no slave ? 

Ah yes, a spiritual joy, 
Unmixed with grosser happiness of earth, 
In Youth's fond fancy takes its sanguine birth 
And thinks naught may destroy: 

When love and truth our thoughts employ, 
When all the evils of this life unseen, 
We dream of pleasures that have never been 

Save as bright Hope's decoy ! 

It is the bliss of syinpatJiy — 
A love of truth joined with the joy of Love 
That we would cherish whereso'er we rove 
From all base drosses free. 

Fair maid, wouldst thou this pleasure see ? 
In its best purity ? O let the star, 
That guideth thee, be fixed in Heaven afar ! 

So all earth's perils shalt thou safely flee ! 



1842. 
WASHINGTON'S BIRTH-DAY. 

An address delivered before the Euglossian 
Society of Geneva College. The poem was an 
Apostrophe to Liberty, rehearsing some of the 
vicissitudes of her historical progress and her 



52 



final triumph under Washington in the New 
World. 

Fair Goddess, take me to thy once loved home, 
The towering temples of old Greece and Rome ! 
Tell me the story of that Spartan band, 
Who perished on the threshold of their land — 
Say, — did Leonidas e'en smile in death. 
With words of glory on his parting breath ? 
And was it for his country thus he stood, 
To waste like water such heroic blood? 
Oh speak ! for thou wast by ! — and tell thy grief. 
At the sad fate of that great Theban Chief, 
Who waved his sword on Mantinea's plain. 
Where thousands of true Grecian braves were slain. 
Ah ! 'twas a dread, a dark, despairing spell, 
That seized thee when Epaminondas fell ! 
But tho' contending nations heard thy shriek. 
And thy loved Greece in terror pale grew weak. 
Thou didst not yet begin thy last long flight. 
But lingeredst still round Athens' stony height. 
Madst proud Minerva's city thy abode 
When iron despots o'er the nations strode !— 
But even here the threatening cloud grew black. 
As if that Persian storm was now rolled back. 
When from the North spread rumors of dread war, 
And terror flew fioni Philips' raging car ! 

Not long beneath those blue and halcyon skies, 
Shalt thou behold thy stately pillars rise — 



53 

Not long shall paeans to thy sacred name, 
Inspire the ranks with war's resistless flame — 
Not long the poet's mythologic lay, 
With airy music sing thy glorious sway ! 
Barbaric legions shall invade thy seats, 
With terribler success than Xerxes' fleets — 
Thy monuments shall crumble 'neath the tread, 
Of Macedonia's phalanx — Greece's dread ! 

But there was one, of whom thou madst thy choice, 
To raise for thee one last, loud warning voice — 
Tho' stoutest heroes quailed on that dread day. — 
Tho' patriot hearts were shrouded in dismay — 
Yet, ere thy Greece must drink that bitter cup, 
One, great, immortal Orator stood up — 
Whose fearless soul was touched with angry fire, 
That freedom should be bought for filthy hire ! — 
Whose winged words flew o'er the hills around, 
Till Macedon e'en trembled at the sound ! 
"Ye men of Athens ! let's to victory fly, 
Or swear by the immortal Gods to die !" 

I see him on the Bema as he stands, 
And stretches forth to heaven both his hands : 
His country's thickening dangers one might trace. 
In the stern gloom of that majestic face !* 

* I heard Daniel Webster at Canandaigua in one of his final 
speeches n( t long before his dtath It brought back ths 
line to mind, as he des ribed the debate in the Senate when 
he made his " famous speech of March 7th." There was 
indescribable pathos in hi'5 tones, as with a long pause 
after his words, he exclaimed, " I stood alone !" 

In a Fourth of July Oration in 18 s^ at Waterloo, the 
writer tried to describe Webster's sole devotion in all his 
thoughts and words, to the Consttution of his country. 
" This lived within him, this shall be 
A part of his eternity." 



54 



The listening multitude sway to and fro, 
Loud clamoring to be led against the foe.* 



Nor, though thou crossed the Adriatic foam, 
Didst thou long tarry at imperial Rome — 
Fain hadst thou made thy dwelling on that height, 
Whence the tall Capitol shone far and bright — 
Fain hadst thou made those seven hills thine own, 
So thou couldst reign in safety and alone — 
But no ! harsh Discord there had clamored long. 
Murder and Hate, and mad Ambition's throng ! 
Full oft thou fled'st in breathless fear away, 
Scared by some sudden tyrant's bloody sway — 
Full oft thy gentle spirit was aggrieved 
At the sad mockery thy name received. 
" I am a Roman Citizen," — that boast 
That claimed respect on every foreign coast, 
Was but a satire on thy former praise, 
Whilst'miscalled trhtmpJis filled the Roman Ways ! 
Triumphs! — of haughty kings o'er harmless men! 
Who never knew there was a Rome till then ! 
Triumphs ! nay, rather each a sacrifice. 
At that dark shrine whence all true glory flies — 
AVhere Avarice near her unclean altar stands, 
Revenge and Robbery waiting her commands ! 

* Some one has said that all modern Europe maybe found 
in ^schylus. Aristophanes' joke about Demosthenes was 
borrowed by Butler in his Hudibras : 

" He who fights and runs away, 
May live to fight another day." 



55 



Yet, Liberty ! e'en Rome thy visits shared — 
There were times when be nobly free she dared ! 
The elder Brutus called thee not in vain, 
While standing o'er the fair Lucretia slain — 
That multitude that sought the Sacred Mount, 
Left their paternal homes on thy account. 
Thou didst the heart of that brave youth inspire> 
Who saw his hand consuming in the fire, 
And with a dauntless smile th' Etrurian king 
Showed how a Roman spurned at suffering! — 
The Decii rushed across the deadly field, 
Offerings to thee their generous lives to yield ! 
Thou too wast with the People in their force, 
Who vengeance vowed o'er young Virginia's corse, 
In vain did Appius mourn his base design, 
Whilst armies bristled o'er the Aventine ! 

But last of all, thou nerved'st that Brutus' arm. 

Who roused all Rome with freedom's last alarm — 

As the dark cloud of bold usurping power. 

Hung o'er her Capitol, in that dread hour. 

When mighty Csesar on the imperial throne 

Of the Eternal city sat alone ! — 

For thee he struck a traitor's odious blow, 

Alas ! he did not save his country so ! 

His brave companions with him flew to war. 

But on Philippi's bloody field afar, 

Intrepid martyrs in thy cause they fell 

And bade, like thee, their land a last farewell ! 



56 



(Geneva Courier.) 

SONNETS. Jan. 31, 1842. 



TO MISS M.- F . 

Lady ! methinks around that pensive brow, 
There hangs a sweet, tho' melancholy charm. 
Which scarcely tells that thou hast suffered harm 
From Time or Fate ; and he who gazes now 
Upon thy beauty, feels his heart grow warm 
With recollections sad of other years, 
When, 'mid a sea of boyish hopes and fears, 
He made his Cynosure, thy own fair form. 
Ah ! clouds and darkness long have blacken'd o'er 
That once bright prospect ; hidden from his view 
Thy star-like loveliness ; which to adore 
With deep, with breathless worship, once he knew. 
Ay, — and knows yet, tho' mellow 'd is its sway. 
As the mild radiance of an Indian summer's day. 



(Geneva Courier.) 

Jan. 2, 1S43. 

TO MY OLD CLOCK. 

Sad, earnest chronicler of flying years ! 

Why art so heedless of the ocean roar 

That time, and Life, and Death, around thee 
pour? 
The shout of Gladness, or the wail of Tears, 
The calm of Hope, the trembling of wild Fears — 

War's thunder by, or dim beyond the sea. 

Are all alike indifferent to thee. 



57 



The only voice thy clos'd ear ever hears, 
The only sight thy dull eye e'er beholds, 

Are far beyond the Present's rapid hour, 
In that dark Future Time alone unfolds — 

Thou look'st and listenest till that dread Power 
Send forth His herald over sea and shore, 
*'Time was, and is, but Time shall be no more." 

Say, hoary marker of the minutes' flight. 

Hast thou no yearning for the time that's fled — 
No thought of sorrow for the millions dead, 
Ev'n since thou rung'st, at solemn noon of night, 
Another year's departure ? — Oh the might 

Of the dark stream of thought — the death of 

Time- 
That fills the soul to hear that funeral chime ! 
But thou art silent ; and yet there's a height 
Of eloquence sublime in that deep gaze 

Which forward looks, regardless of the past. 
Save but to tell the flight of other days 

Preaches to us the Present cannot last. 
Aye, Energy and Faith may look on thee, 
And recognise that Hope which worldlings cannot 
see! "Olim." 



Feb. 1842. 

(Geneva Gazette.) 

FLIGHT OF THE LOVERS. 
She turned, with a tearful eye, 
That beauteous trembling girl; 
Tho' a tempest was blackening in the sky 



58 



Helping night her pall to unfurl. 

She looked, with a lingering gaze 

On the city all murky and dun, 

Whose domes were but now in a glorious blaze. 

With the beams of a setting sun ! 

She thought she saw the red light 

That gleamed from her father's hall, 

Where for many a day, full happy and bright. 

She had come at her mother's call. 

And her swollen heart burst o'er 

From her eyes in a crystal flood ; 

But alas ! 'twas on the farther shore, 

Of a roaring stream she stood. 

" See, Love!" cried a beardless youth, 
We have crossed this torrent wild 
That divides from a man who knows no ruth. 
The hand and heart of his child ! 
O haste ! by that dread Power 
That rides yon rumbling storm 
Let us haste far away while now is the hour. 
While now young love is warm." 

" Thou leav'st not a breast behind 
Where thy image is deeper traced 
Than here in the core of my inmost mind — 
O come then, sweet, let us haste ! 
We will go to a happier land — 
We will share a still happier lot — 
Nay we'll e'en yet grasp thy father's hand 
And his sternness shall be forgot !" 



59 



He turned, as he spoke and threw 

A fearful, impatient glance 

Tow'rd the town now all obscured from view 

By the dark clouds' grim advance, 

And she saw by the lightning's glare 

How the wind swept the locks o'er his brow— 

O why should the lovers tarry there ! 

— They are safe in their chariot now ! 




Sept. 12 1842. 

I- 

" Faith !" 'tis a word that angels breathe, 

And spirits understand : — 
But Oh, in this sad world beneath, 

'Tis written in the sand. 
The footprints of the Arab steed 

That scours the desert waste 
The pilgrim might as wisely heed — 

Thev're not more hardlv traced. 



GO 



II. 



The wandering winds of circumstance 

Efface each vestige dear 
Of what small trust we find, perchance, 

In all our journeyings here. 
So have I known the ways of men, 

And so 'tis e'er the same: — 
Friends only meet to part again. 

And Friendship — 'tis a name. 

in. 

But Oh ! I fain would still believe. 

There is a faith more deep 
Than that brief thought such partings leave, 

— Which e'en might never sleep. 
A mortal symbol of that trust, 

Which looks on things unseen ; 
Which, w^hen hopes crumble in the dust 

Might grow forever green ! 

IV. 

They say — would I might feel 'tis true, — 

Faith is the Christian's rock ; 
From whence he sees, with raptured view, 

The Saviour and His flock. 
This Faith with Spiritual eye. 

Looks out on Time's dread shore, 
The flood of finite things sweeps by, 

But she stands evermore I 



61 



July, 1842. 

AFTER BURNS— FLOW GENTLY SWEET 
AFTON. 

O tranquil, sweet Seneca ! be thy repose, 
And tranquil the stream to thy bosom that flows ; 
My loved one's asleep by thy silvery wave, — 
Be tranquil, sweet Seneca, in thy deep cave. 

Thy pure crystal waters flash gloriously bright, 
Where the moon sends across them her pillar of 

light, 
And in pale modest beauty beams forth the lone 

star, 
Like a ray of effulgence from Heaven afar. 

Be tranquil, sweet Seneca ! break not the spell 
That broods in the silence of yon shady dell ; 
Perchance my low musings may visit her dream — 
Be tranquil, sweet Seneca, 'neath the moon-beam. 

O well have I loved on thy green banks to rest. 
And see the sky mirrored far down in thy breast, 
And the sncwy clouds wreathing their draperies 

there. 
Like tents of the Angels mid fields of blue air ! 

And now could T linger till night's latest hour. 
Subdued by the charm of thy soft soothing power ; 
There lives such a deep, placid I'ov in thy sleep. 
Even Sorrow herself would forget here to weep. 



63 



But oh there's a presence that makes my heart 

thrill, 
With a troublous emotion thy sway cannot still ; 
She sleeps — if she sleeps — on yon verdant hill-side 
The joy of my bosom, my hope, and my pride. 

More brig^ht, thou pale Wanderer, be thy cold ray 
As o'er that sombre hillock thou chancest to stray; 
Light up the far waters and woods with a smile. 
For there may thy beams love to linger awhile ! 



(Geneva Coui'ier.) 
SONNETS. 1843. 

TO AN INFANT BROTHER SLEEPING. 

All mingled are the feelings of my breast. 

While thus I gaze on thee, my baby brother ! 

Where sweetly in the arms of our fond mother. 
Shrinking and sad, thou'st made thy little nest. 
Oh heavenly is the calmness of thy rest. 

Though wreathing smiles and dimples without 
number. 

Play o'er thy face amidst thy gentle slumber, 
Like sunshine streaming in the summer west, 
Pregnant with weeping clouds; while whispering 
sighs 

Breathe softly from thy coral lips between, 
As if thy spirit murmured at the guise, 

Which here its angel loveliness would screen : 
Though nearest of all that on this earth is given, 
Thy tiny form is to the cherub sprites of Heaven. 



63 



Sleep on as sweetly, dear, unconscious child ! 
I've long before thee been where thou art now, 
As smooth and free of care mj'- infant brow, 

As thine there all so still, serene, and mild. 

But my heart saddens when I think the wild 
Remorseless waves of life's tempestuous sea 
Shall rise before thee as they have to me. 

The sunny skies that o'er nay young days smiled, 

When the heart bounded with a gushing joy, 
And Hope was free and pure as mountain air. 

When Nature was the mistress of the Boy, 

And he ne'er dreamed of hoary, wrinkled Care, 

Are all with life's dull vapors overcast — 

No, 'tis not hard to die ere childhood's days are 
past ! Ohm. 



(Geneva Courier.) 
NIAGARA FALLS. July, 1S43. 

SUGGESTED BY A FIRST VISIT TO THE FALLS. 

" Slultus ego huic nostrae similem, quo saepe solerrms." 

— \ irgil. 

The voice of many waters : ay, the tones 
In which the Almighty speaks his majesty ! 

Great God ! forgive the vain presumptuousness, 
That comes with trifling thought and curious eye, 
Hither to gaze on thy Omnipotence. 
Before thy matchless sovereignty the low 
And unsubstantial purposes of man 
Vanish like fleecy films of yonder spray. 
That float across the sunbeam's shining track ; 



6i 



And hears the trembling soul, like Sinai once, 
That voice, "Be still and know that I am God." 
I would not rudely rush before thy feet, 
Nor stand irreverent by thy mighty throne — 
The temple of thy God-head and thy power. 
Like the rash hunter of Bseotia's hills. 
That rued the sudden sight of Deity. 

Father Almighty ! hallowed be thy name ! 
Our joy is full that thou art still supreme. 
Hast thou not made the world and all therein ? 
And dwell'st thou not even yet among the ruins 
Of that creation fair which first outsprung. 
Called by the Word of thine own sovereign will? 
O let us truly feel thou art not far 
From every one of us and from thy works ; 
And so demean us as our heavenly source 
Becomes — that source to which we shall return. 



SONNETS. 

Great Cataract ! but for thy sullen roar. 
That will not heed the words of mortal man, 
Methinks I'd ask thee when thy voice began 

To wake with mountain murmurs wood and shore; 

But on thine awful brow I see the hoar 
Of by-gone ages ; yet I fain would learn. 
Or if Aquarius poured thee from his Urn, 

Cup-bearer to Almighty Jove of yore. 

Whom he hath placed down in yon wintry sign, 
Thy symbol and thy herald in the sky ; 



65 



Or if that stream erst sung in classic line, — 
Thou art that l-dng of rivers sweeping by, 
Whose rapid waters with mysterious fall. 
Sunk sudden down to Pluto's gloomy Hall. 

And when thy cloudy pillar far I saw, 

Above gray rocks and towering trees arise, 

Methinks my steps profane drew near with awe, 
As if I heard the Sibyl's warning cries. 

From out her horrid cave — the easy way 
To dark Avernus and the shades of hell ; 
But not alone she throws her wizard spell, 

O'er solitudes unvisited of day ; 

For here old ^olus with bolt and bar, 
Restrains the fury of the imprisoned winds. 
And storms sonorous in his cavern binds ; 

And here with golden hues reflected far, 

Hath Iris too her gorgeous bow displayed, 

In glittering showers of diamond drops arrayed. 

Farewell, old Thunderer ! long I here might stand. 
And mutely gaze on thy green flood immense; 
But Oh the feeble grasp of mortal sense. 
Thy greatness cannot compass: — but one Hand 
Hath made thee, — can unmake thee ; one command 
Can check those countless waves that with wild 

joy, 

Like Homer's myriads o'er the plains of Troy, 
Come wide careering down yon rocky strand, . 



66 



With sounds innumerable, swift and loud, 
Madly impetuous for the unmeasured leap ; 

That voice both I and thou shalt hear, tho' proud, 
Thine ancient throne for ages thou may'st keep : 

And hushed thy solitary roar shall be, 

Though still another race may come to look on thee. 

G. 



ON THE DEATH OF MISS M. J. D. 1843. 

And has thy gentle spirit ta'en its flight. 
Away from all this many color' d scene 
Of hopes and fears, and with pure faith serene, 

Entered upon that journey far and bright. 

With happy exultation ? Oh ! the light 

That mildly glistened from those eyes so clear. 
As if the glories of some other sphere 

Were dawning on thy spiritual sight 
And thence reflected to our mortal gaze I 

When last we saw thee, as, with feeble frame 
And cheek more flushed than in thy blooming 
days, 

Thou, and kind friends to our fair village came. 
Ah ! well we knew whom Death had set apart. 
But scarcely thought so soon would speed his 
fatal dart ! 



And when thou bad'st us all thy last farewell, 
Soothing our sorrow with a placid smile. 
As if it might our tearful grief beguile. 

To* know that thou wert only going to dwell 



67 



In happier home, where ever sweetly swell 
Those never-dying notes of heavenly song, 
To which thy spirit had faintly listened long ! 

Oh, who had need of th' oracle to tell, 

If the gay bark that bore thee swift away. 

O'er yonder glittering, sky-reflecting wave, 
Like the dark skiff that fords the Stygian bay, 

Were hurrying thee to th' av'nues of the grave? 

But joyful is our hope that it was given 

For thee ev'n there to find thy entrance blest to 
Heaven. G. B. 



WAITING FOR THE BOAT. 1842. 

Dost thou remember. Love, 

That brilliant Autumn day. 
When the bright blue sky looked cold above, 

As the Seneca's silver spray? 
And the north wind o'er the chill waves blew, 

And thou stood'st by the lee. 
But as the dark waters rougher grew 

Did I not shelter thee ? 

Oh sweet the conscious pride 

That swelled in my young breast, 
That there all timidly by my side, 

She shrunk, like a dove, to its nest ! 
And the blast may rush with ruder sweep 

To reach thy gentle brow, 
I'd laugh mid the winds of an Alpine steep 

To shield thee ever as now ! 



i844- 
THE LOVER'S PROGRESS. 

(After Shirley.) 

The wanderings of the wistful soul 
That seeks from loneliness to flee, 
Are fruitless as the onward roll 
Of billows o'er the wasteful sea. 
O who hath found 
The world around. 
One pulse responsive to the swell 
Of thoughts that in his own breast dwell ? 

II. 

If there could be substantial joy 
In aught of sublunary things. 
'Twere when perhaps that heavenly boy 

First shades our hearts with fluttering wings. 
Full well he knows 
What sweet repose 
The poison of his airy dart 
Flings, spell-like, o'er the subtle smart. 

III. 

Oh who shall tell the Lover's dream — 

The visions of that inward eye, 
On which ideal glories beam. 
And spirits of beauty glitter by ? 
But there is one 
Like whom are none. 



69 



Before the radiance of whose brow, 
His soul in deepest awe will bow. 

» • • ■ • 

IV. 

But say at length that paradise 

Hath opened on his raptured gaze. 
And say, still more, this angel's eyes 
Bent lip, not down, their gentle rays, 
For oh ! the heaven 
Of all that's given 
To man of joy on earth to know 
Is love that loyalty can show ! 

V. 

Ay, say that on that life's green shore 

Thy goddess meets thee with a smile. 
And in thy breast such dreams doth pour. 
As e'en thy being will beguile, 
.^neas-like. 
Thine eyes will strike 
On all around thee, whilst a cloud 
Envelopes thee with thickest shroud. 

VI. 

Thy world, though fancied, is full large. 

For thee to roam, soul-free and wild. 
Not e'en the sea of Time's dread marge 
Shall daunt thee, Nature's foolish child, 
All things and forms. 
All clouds and storms. 



70 



That cross imagination's sky, 
Are but a pleasure for thine eye. 

VII. 

Thou triest to breathe into her ears 

The throbbmgs of thy captive heart, 
She whispers thee such gentle fears 
As best show what to her thou art. 
Thou askest not 
Thy future lot. 
Thou lov'st — art loved, and love and truth 
Shall make thy life immortal youth ! 

Thus far may suffice for the effusions of boy- 
hood and youth. The struggle with poverty 
following an early marriage and change of eccle- 
siastical relations, (itself a cause of sore trial,) 
long silenced any further attempts in this Une. 
If they were followed in later years by anything 
more mature, of which some scattered samples 
may be found in the files of the Goipel Mes- 
senger^ (1860-187 2) and the Chicrch Eclectic^ 
(1873-1895,) they were by no means the pro- 
duct of literary art, but the spontaneous utter- 
ance of the feehngs called forth by the more 
serious facts and events of life's experience. 

w^. T. G. 



71 



1 847. 

IN THE THICK OF THE STRUGGLE FOR 
BREAD. 

1. I sought my lonely pillow 

One drear October night, 
But my frame, tho' aching wearily, 

Put Morpheus' train to flight 
And as I tossed, all restlessly 

Upon my feverish bed. 
Full many a wondrous vision 

Held revel in my head. 

2. I saw the stir of human life, — 

The hurrying to and fro ; 
The faces of a countless crowd 

And many I seemed to know. 
But none of them regarded me. 

Their looks were downward bent. 
Nor saw I, as they hurried past. 

Wherefore, or whither they went. 

3. But oh ! the careworn, anxious looks 

And haggard, of that throng: — 
They neither spake nor recognised, 

But eagerly pressed along. 
Amid th' innumerable mass 

'Twas motion, action ever. 
But yet a dreadful solitude. 

Whose gloom was brightened never ! 



72 



4- " And these are men! " I faintly cried, 

O God, and what are men ? 
Beings whose life is Agony.* 

And Agony again ! 
Beings that in this glorious world 

With careless Beauty fraught ; 
With eye intense and straining brows 

Seek breathlessly for — nought ! 




* In the Greek sense. 



ERRATA. 

Page 46, 8th line from bottom, sends iov "ends." 
Page 42, 2nd line from bottom, comma (,) after 
"string." 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



mil Hill nil III 



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